Ethical Virus

Ethical weather

The use of weather modification techniques is often surrounded by controversy. An increase of precipitation over an area might be of benefit to some individuals in the area, but a disadvantage to others. For example, suppose that the owner of a private ski resort wants to have clouds seeded in order to increase snowfall over his or her property. If that effort is successful, the ski area benefits, economically. But other individuals and businesses in the area might suffer from this change in the weather. As an example, the county or state might have to pay more to keep roads and highways clear of the additional snow.
Here is an example of a real ethical delimina in a the business of weather

Designing weather forecast models has always been my dream. The challenge of overcoming the uncertainty of weather has always tantalized me. Meteorology is alright, but meteorologists mostly just read data spat out from a computer. I yearned for a more technical, involved career.  I received a job offer from Weather Electronics International (WEI) to become a senior weather forecast modeling engineer. I now design specialized hardware for weather modeling. Specifically, I create Nano-transistors to optimize accuracy in modeling computers, such as the National Weather Service Computer [7]. I work with a team of 3 people on designing these Nano-transistors. Ana is a materials engineer who works to figure what metals to use in the transistors. Bob is a chemical engineer who determines what size transistor is needed and how many are needed. My boss is Bert, who manages multiple engineering teams and creates the budget for research. I have been working with these people for about 2 years now, and haven't had any ethical issues arise. Almost always Bob, Ana and I have had a quality budget to research Nano-transistors. It seemed that everyone's goal was simply to improve weather forecasting for the world. Unfortunately, a recent dilemma has come up, forcing me and my colleagues to take a new perspective on engineering.

About 2 weeks ago, the team and I researched which Nano-resistors would be best for a new weather modeling system, the 4-Dimensional Variation Data Assimilation System. This research had the potential to increase the system's processing speed by 1.5 and accuracy by 10% [7]. We had contacted Dr. Xia Zhang, a computer engineer, and also the creator of this system to negotiate the implications of the research. She was quite excited to hear the potential improvements. Bert gave us the necessary funding, as usual, and we went about our researching. Towards the end of research, however, we discovered that the best Nano- transistor for Dr. Zhang's system did not perform consistently to the predictions we had made. In addition of an increase in processing speed of 1.5, the system would also occasionally process at .75 of its original speed, along with a 10% reduction in forecasting accuracy. This was due to the heat fluctuations in the Nano-transistor. Bob, Ana, and I decided to arrange a meeting with Bert about this topic, since the
Later that night, in my apartment, I felt obligated to do some research on situations like mine before I could make a decision as to what to tell Dr. Zhang. I found the National Society of Professional Engineers code of ethics. One of the ethics states "Engineers shall advise their clients or employers when they believe a project will not be successful," [1]. This statement suggests that I should be up-front with Dr. Zhang about the occasional decrease in speed of the system. While my research was still successful, the ethic's statement implies to not cover up any faults. The Institutes of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) code of ethics clarifies this, by stating that engineers are "to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data," [2] Bert asked me to do the exact opposite; to be dishonest and unrealistic in stating claims based on available data. He wanted me to straight up lie to Dr. Zhang by saying that our Nano-transistor worked perfectly. Unfortunately, Bert had also made a claim about meteorologists taking the blame engineers' mistakes. Looking at IEEE's code of ethics again, I found that engineers are "to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work. To acknowledge and correct
errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others," [2]. If Dr. Zhang's weather modeling system runs too slowly at a certain time, then the meteorologist using that system might get public flak, instead of me, who is the real cause. The more code of ethics I read, the more powerful my disagreement with Bert became. How could he undermine basic ethics for the sake of money? I still wasn't sure what to do about the situation, so I decided to research some articles on ethics to find out what is actually ethical in the engineering world. One article was written by Renzo Taddei, a professor of communications at the University of Rio de Janeiro. He interviewed meteorologists in Brazil, whom, "out of fear of being verbally abused, avoided going to public places like supermarkets whenever they felt there was a general perception that previously issued climate forecasts were wrong," [4]. That statement scared me. I had no idea that my mistakes could have that much of an impact on peoples' lives. If Dr. Zhang isn't confronted with honesty, a meteorologist might suffer the fate of those interviewed meteorologists, all because of a lie. Renzo also dove into how the public does not care about the uncertainty of weather forecasts. He claims that the general public looks to science for concrete, certain answers, even though that is impossible when it comes to weather [4]. He alluded to Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle, which states that you cannot simultaneously know the position and speed of an electron. The same principle, Renzo argues, applies to weather. An amount of uncertainty is inevitable [4]. That is why engineers are constantly trying to upgrade weather models, so that we can have a more concrete answer. It felt to me that Bert was trying to jeopardize that goal, through self-serving decisions based on money rather than ethics.

Did he come to the correct ethical decision?